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Rust Coreutils Continues Working Toward 100% GNU Compatibility, Proving Trolls Wrong
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this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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it still has a permissive license :(
You are very right. While non-copyleft licences makes sense for some software (a game engine like Godot, for example, released under the MIT licence) it's absolutely awful for the coreutils.
I wasn't aware that the coreutils software was changing its license?
As far as I know uutils has always been under an mit licence, hasn't it?
In your comment you said:
My (admittedly, facetiously made) point is that coreutils is already GPL, and it's not like it is going away.
What's wrong with a permissive licence?
GPL or GTFO! On a more serious note: Permissive licenses open a project up to unilateral exploitation by commercial entities and can lead to fractured ecosystems.
On a more principled note: permissive licenses (as compared to free software licenses) undermine the free software ecosystem and the freedoms it brings in the long term and the thing that uutils is doing - that is taking a GPL licensed project and rewriting it under a more permissive license is corrosive to free software. GPL applies not when corporations use a piece of software, but when they distribute binaries back to you. This is not about limiting the rights of corporations but about protecting the digital freedom of people.
It allows uuitls, which is an important piece of closed source software, to be used in properitary software. and that is bad.
Isn't it open source? Why is it being in proprietary software bad?
The theoretical concern is that some nefarious company will start making improvements and not contribute them back so that it can have access to (and possibly even sell) its own premium version that takes advantage of the hard work of the community without giving back.
Personally, I am a bit skeptical of this for a couple of reasons. First, I have a really hard time seeing any company care enough about uutils to do this. Second, continually merging changes from an upstream project is a real pain, so there is a strong incentive to make contributions back out of self-interest.
But even to the extent that there is some grounds to be concerned, it is not enough for so many people to contribute so much noise to every single one of these posts whining, as if it is attack on them personally.
If you expect that people will in reality treat the project as if it is copyleft. Why not support it being officially copyleft? Why just trust corporations to be good citizens when you could insist on it?
This. Licenses are so that trust is not needed and being a good FOSS citizen is expected. That means publishing your code if you fork, giving proper attibution and granting your users the same rights as the original project did.
Something very normal.
Agreed!
Okay, but if the developers of uutils do not care about these things, and they would be the ones most hurt because they would not get access to the changes that others are making... why should the rest of us make a big deal over it?
Because we are users, contributors, packagers, distributors... and if the project is unsustainable and suddenly becomes proprietary that is bad. Or if the project is included in proprietary systems. Nobody will have the right to get source code then, or in case of GPLv3 even the right to install other software. Copyleft and GPLv3 grant users the rights to prevent e-waste
So, in your opinion, should these developers simply stop their work on this project of they are not willing to use the GPL?
No, but as they do great work it is a shame that they dont protect it and thereby reduce the protection of every distro shipping them
Fair enough. I do actually get the concern, though I think that the threat is being exaggerated. However, I would argue that, if the goal is not to try and get these developers to abandon their efforts, then it does not make sense for every single discussion to get flooded with the same complaints about the license to the point that not much else seems to get talked about.
Because it is not my decision as it is not my project, and I do not like to constantly be making big deal about other people's decisions unless there is a significant chance of them having a significantly negative impact on my life, which I do not see in this case.
Then why are you in this thread at all?
You mean, why am I participating in the discussion of project that I enjoy following?
What freedom is being taken away from you, personally, exactly, that makes it so bad that they decided to go with this license?
It's not a matter of "him" personally. Permissive license allow for a work to be taken and redistributed by other entities, without enforcing them to release their changes. This creates a one way relationship that is generally detrimental to the open source ecosystem, allowing work to be stolen away from the public. That being said, choosing a license is situational, and a permissive one can be a great choice in certain instances. For that particular case, I don't see much benefit to having a permissive licence.
Okay, so it sounds like in practice this would primarily affect the uutils developers by denying them access to these changes. However, they are the ones who deliberately chose this license, so why make a big deal of it in every single uutils thread?
Not the commenter you're asking, but I do consider the MIT licence a bad one for something like a core part of an OS. Not all FOSS licences are created equal, there're even important differences between the different GPLs (GPL2 is more permissive than GPL3, for example. With AGPL you have to grant the freedoms to the users even if the software is running out of your server, which isn't a thing with GPL2/3), and even the most permissive ones have a reason to exist, but I'm yet to hear (or read) a good one for these uutils, so I'm not touching any distro or project that uses these mit core utils with a ten foot pole.
What specific problem are you afraid would make your life worse as a result of uutils being MIT-licensed that is so bad that the entire operating system is verbatim to you? Especially given that coreutils will continue to be available to you?
Are you going to complain about this every time uutils is posted?
Yes, because its a valid complain.
Okay, then every time you complain about it I will point out that your complaint is a petty one that adds nothing to the discussion.
It will be a tireless job but someone has to do it. :-)
I guess that's fair.
Yes.
Because I can.
And also, as the other two commenters said, it's a valid complaint for something as important as coreutils.
Just because you can add noise to a discussion does not mean that you have to.
Licencing is a legitimate concern (not noise), even more so considering it's for the core utils
So it needs to be commented on in every single article?
If so, is that going to change anything?
Yes
Potentially.
The alternative is not bringing up the concern and it goes forgotten until it is too late and we are stuck with the results of bad decisions for no good reason.
Developers voicing their concerns is the only way things can change for the better.
Here's two examples:
Redis licensing rug pull
Google's JpegXL whiplash
And there's plenty of other examples (e.g. Microsoft against linux -> WSL support, etc...)
If developers don't voice their concerns, then things stop changing for the better.
Whose opinion do you actually think is going to be changed? All I see here is a lot of preaching to the choir here. If I were a uutils developer, I would stay far away from all of these discussions because of how much hate is directed towards it.
If they do not adopt the license you prefer, would it be better for them to just go ahead and abandon the whole effort? Are there efforts really so valueless simply because they chose the license that they did? Moreover, is dictating to volunteers what license they should be using for their code what you think this community should be about?
You claim that it is important that people make tons noise in every single post on uutils because it will prevent a bad scenario down the line, but could you detail what that scenario is? Because people like to make allusions to such a scenario constantly but refuse to get specific and then engage on a discussion on the specifics.
Incidentally, your choice of Redis is an example exactly illustrates my point that this license is not a gigantic deal it shows that the worst case scenario is... uutils being forked. Heck, it can even be forked at any time with a copyleft license precisely because its existing language is permissive.
I only see the hate towards this project being either from anti-rust trolls, or misdirected hate from Ubuntu towards switching to a new coreutils implementation on an LTS release before full compatibility has been achieved. I don't see any hate in regards to licensing.
Their efforts have value, but the value is limited by its current license. MIT licenced projects have a recurring history of being improved privately without those improvements going back into the project. It leads to a lot of duplicated, wasted effort. There may also be the potential for patent issues with the licence. No one wants to deal with some litigious asshole or company going after the project turning it radioactive.
I think bringing up issues with the project is definitely something that should be brought up. As for dictating which particular licence is used, that's up to the contributors, but that doesn't mean others can't give their input. It's also likely that most of the contributors will want a license that allows the project to safely continue into the future.
I thought the Redis example was a good example of this.
I continue on this point further down, but I'm leaving this right now to stay on topic with redis.
The community was fractured. A report by an enterprise support company said 75% of existing redis users were motivated to seek alternatives. I'm not sure what number you would consider to be a gigantic deal, but Redis certainly thought it was, otherwise they would not have reverted back to the previous license.
It can be forked, but relicensing can mean needing permission from every contributor of the original, and/or removing all contributions from those who don't agree to the new licence. Not to mention the community fracturing, and legal issues. It's a massive effort that can be prevented by the original project choosing a better license earlier.
Well this comment is probably getting too long, so I'll simply point you towards the busybox licensing drama.
I agree that being concerned is reasonable. The reason for my fervor is that I find it unreasonable for every single discussion of uutils to be flooded with complaints about the license--that are often very toxic, e.g. reference to uutils using a "cuck license" as one commenter did above--to the point that there are few discussions of anything else.
Then make a top level comment that kicks off the type of discussion you want.
For all your comments, not a single one was a reply to the post itself. Lots of comments presenting your POV (totally fair), others that call the contributions of others noise because you think their POV is low value and over represented.
Your posting style may come from a good place, but it’s very adjacent to sealioning. Be the change that you want to see, not a comment warrior creating engagement in every comment thread where someone on the internet is wrong.
It is not just that these complaints are noise, but that they contribute to a general environment of toxicity by complaining about other people working on a project they are passionate about, which is something I abhor. To the extent that I am coming across as being toxic myself (which is not an unreasonable viewpoint in many, but not all, cases), I consider that to be me holding up a mirror of the comment I am responding to.
You did not address the core issue, which is that you engage with many comment threads negatively and on an individual basis, providing a cyclical viewpoint. This is creating engagement for each “toxic” thread individually instead of confidently asserting a PoV and letting it rest. I understand that from your perspective that it’s fair to lower yourself to their perceived level, but it’s still bloating the toxic side of the discourse instead of helping it move on.
Drop a wall of well reasoned text and let it stand on its own. Or provide the type of comment that you want to see at the top level and be the change you want.
Case in point, I’ve said what I wanted to say, have found myself restating it once, and this comment is my peace out. A good day to you!
It does not mean i can't.
And that's all i care.
You're right, you can contribute as much noise as you can to any discussion you want.
But that is all you are doing.